Early this week I called a home repairman in Jonesboro named Handy Randy, whom I heard good things about and who advertises from time to time in the local Fairmount paper. We arranged for him to stop by after six o’clock yesterday evening to take a look at the back of my roof.

I told him about the dry rot behind the fascia, and showed him the rotted wood on the ground where I poked it out with my weeding tool. I showed him that the “pipe” on the roof leads nowhere, being a remnant of the previous furnace. He, in turn, could see right away how my roof is leaking. He also remarked that drip edge I installed last year made the leaks worse by damming the water coming down from the roof, causing the water to leak into the roof.

He also told me, that the back gutter itself is prone to collapse in a hard freeze due to the weight of ice, which a vinyl gutter cannot hold. I was aware of this when I build the back gutter. But I was hoping that the gutter would do the job and stay up there year in, year out. And it did manage to hold together during this past winter. But I can see now that, given its original goal, the gutter project was a failure.

The gentleman suggested a metal gutter and drip edge in place of the current vinyl one. He also would replace the fascia and the board behind it (what is left of it), as well as replacing any rotted rafters. He would also install a thicker plywood panel for the evidently rotted and obviously inferior one. And he would remove the remnant of the previous furnace. I would get an estimate this week on how much it would cause.

A couple of days later I got in the mail the estimate for the back roof work. This will involve:

Removing the back roof to see how much the dry rot has spread.

Replace any dry rot in the rafters as needed.

Replace the remaining fascia boards with new aluminum-over-wood boards.

Lay an ice and water shield (sheets of polyethylene on rubberized asphalt) where the main roof joins the back roof.

Lay felt underlayment and a new drip edge.

Install new shingles of a color matching the rest of the roof.

Lay a flashing sealant along the edge of the roof.

Install a new aluminum back gutter with downspout.

The estimate is more than twice the money I spent on the data conduit project with antenna. I do have enough in one of my savings account. But I want to run the estimate by my folks, discuss a home-repair loan with my banks, and talk to the gentleman before deciding to sign off on the estimate.